Contemporary reviews of vintage novels

My top pics from the 1941 bestseller list

The 1941 bestseller list contains two fine novels: For Whom the Bell Tolls (a hold-over from 1940’s bestseller list) and The Sun is My Undoing.

For Whom the Bell Tollsis a classic by an acknowledged master of fiction, Ernest Hemingway. It is the superior book in terms of its literary quality. However, it’s subject—an insider view of an insurgency—seems positively wimpy compared The Sun is My Undoingby an untouted novelist, Marguerite Steen. Steen writes about the slave trade from the perspective of a slave trader

The rest of the 1941 line consists of relatively undistinguished novels of which James Hilton’s Random Harvest is best known and H. M. Purlham, Esquire by John P. Marquand is the best written.

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